I started this challenge with the intention of getting on my mat every day, even on my day off from the mat I meditated (most of the time). I realized this last weekend that this is going to be nearly impossible in the next coming weeks. I had to face reality. There were way too many things to do, that doing a full practice was impossible, I was faced with a dilemma, do I abandon my challenge for the next few days, or do I change what my intentions are.
I felt that I had opposite destructive habits fighting against me while making the decision of how to practice amongst all of the changes taking place. On the one hand I wanted to avoid my mat and all the feelings I was having related to the move. On the other hand I wanted to stand strong and work hard, get excited for the move through powerful and sweat making movements, but I knew that during this time of constant list-making and stress that ‘power yoga’ would push my body to its max.
I decided to take a break on Sunday and reevaluate what it meant to get on my mat – was it just physical exercise (as my ego would like to believe) or was there another way to experience my practice – and what would that look like?
Deep down I knew I needed to get on my mat, not for any physical reason, but because it grounded me. I thought about what it meant to be grounded, I thought of poses that helped me feel grounded. I also needed to lose myself in a rhythm, to have to concentrate so much that the lists that keep forming in my head would have no choice but to fall silent. I needed to just breathe and move. I needed to meditate, I needed to pray. And so I chose to do sun salutations.
I didn’t know how many I would do, or in what order, all I knew is that I would get on my mat, follow my breath with my movement and lose myself in the rhythm. I knew I had a maximum of 45 minutes and that a set of five sun salutations take about 10-15 minutes, so my best option was to do a set of five for each kind of sun salutation: A, B, classical.
Sun salutation A:
Sun salutation B
In between the sets I would add a pose of my choosing, whatever I felt like doing – if anything at all.
Classical sun salutation
It was a wonderful change. It was also a wonderful lesson on the niyama – tapas, or self-discipline. Tapas is not driven by the ego, like self-discipline can be at times, but instead, it is driven by our highest intention, stillness. What does that mean exactly. If self discipline is driven by the ego, then you are more likely to get on your mat to prove something – I can do this pose, I can do more, I can do better. These are not necessarily bad things, but in yoga they can cause physical harm (if you’re not ready to do a certain pose, or your too tired to care about alignment), and emotional stress (if we continuously compare ourselves to others or feel inadequate because we can’t do a certain pose we can never truly be at peace or present on our mat). Working towards stillness means working within yourself. You get on your mat not to prove something, but to learn. You get on your mat every day not to get better at something physically (yoga is never linear) but to learn how great your are already. You get on your mat for yourself, and so in order to do this you need to listen, you need to be honest and present. You need to be willing to look at yourself, your life, and see what it is that you need from your mat today
Through this experience I learned that yoga is not about the difficult postures or the cool combinations – don’t get me wrong these things are great, but they miss the point of what yoga is. We often get caught up in getting better, being better, we compare ourselves to others and ourselves that we lose the point of what yoga is. Yoga is about union – pure and simple. Union of breath and movement, union of mind spirit and body, union between two people, union in life by being present in the moment.
Sometimes change is inevitable, and often times changes will help us learn or be reminded of something. I have been so focused on creating the perfect practice – a lot of variations, a lot of sweat, and a lot of poses, that I forgot about how simple yoga can be. All you need is a mat, your will, and the ability to do a sun salutation. You can even do yoga without being on the mat by practicing the other limbs of yoga that are often forgotten. You can see some examples of these that I have written about in my yoga off the mat challenge: here, here, here and, here. It is really easy to forget these things when we begin to practice. I’ve realized that my ego still has ways of leading the show – whether it’s by feeling guilty for not having time for yoga, or pushing myself because I know I can do more.
There’s a fine line between self-discipline being driven by the ego or by our true intentions, and often times we need a jolt from our routine to help us realize this. But that is the beauty of changes, they allow you to see something that you see every day, but suddenly you see it in a new way. Through changes we grow, and through the changes that are coming with the move, I am learning how yoga has helped me find stillness.
Living yoga in a military wife's life 